The present invention relates to a brush for human, animal, or synthetic hair. A brush according to the present invention can also be used as a cleaning device having retractable bristles for general cleaning purposes.
A conventional curling brush has a shaft having a round cross section. One portion of the shaft is used as a handle, and another portion of the shaft is provided with spaced holes in which bristles are mounted. When such a conventional curling brush is used for hair styling, it is necessary to unwind the brush to remove it from the hair. This procedure often causes tangling, pulling, and damage to the hair. There are several known non-tangling curling brushes that overcome this problem. One such brush includes a handle portion that is freely rotatable with respect to the brush portion when a lock member is disengaged.
Another type of brush designed to overcome the aforementioned problems is provided with retractable bristles. However, most of the prior art retractable brushes require a two-step controlling method to retract the bristles, which involves the sliding of a control element and the subsequent pressing of the control element, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,251 to Wall, for example.
Some known retractable brushes incorporate a horizontal control element which, when actuated, causes the bristles to retract. One such brush is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,191,200 and 4,596,261 to Renda. The necessary horizontal movement is difficult, however, due to the awkward combination of direct pressure and simultaneous sliding movement required to operate the control element with the thumb.
Some retractable brushes are provided with several control knobs that require two-hand operation, one hand to hold the brush and the other to turn/push the knob(s). See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,411,281 to Doern and U.S. Pat. No. 4,492,241 to Thaler et al. This method is impractical for many purposes, such as curling during the blow drying process, wherein the user would either need to have a third hand, or be required to put the dryer down to adjust the knob(s).
U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,905 to Stewart et al. discloses a slidable control for use in retractable bristle brushes. The control operates by coaction with a rotatable cylindrical mandrel carrying pivoted bristles. The control includes a longitudinally slidable button in the handle which has a control. U.S. Pat. No. 4,001,910 to Pellet also discloses retractable brushes of the general type having bristles which can be retracted into the casing of the brush or extended outwardly from the casing into positions at which the bristles are used. These brushes, however, require a great many parts and complex assembly procedures and are therefore not practical.